Failure analysis is an important part of the development of electronic devices, including circuit boards having integrated circuit packages. When assembling a circuit board, such as a printed circuit board, various stresses may lead to defects in solder connections between integrated circuit packages and contacts of the circuit board. There may also be stresses on the integrated circuit packages themselves. That is, there are a number of bonds within the integrated circuit packages which may be affected when the circuit board is assembled. For the circuit board to operate properly, components including integrated circuit packages must not only be properly attached to the circuit board, but must also be functioning.
When assembling a large volume of circuit boards, it is important to identify any processes which may cause defects in the circuit board or components of the circuit board. That is, in order to prevent any failure in the field, it is beneficial to identify failures before circuit boards are released, and identify the cause of the failures so that they may be eliminated. Further, it is beneficial to evaluate all elements of a given circuit board, including both the circuit board itself and components on the circuit board, to understand the impact of various processing steps and identifying solutions to improve the quality of circuit boards. However, when testing a circuit board, certain operations in the testing may impact components of the circuit board, limiting the ability to evaluate how processes for assembling and testing a circuit board may affect the various components of the circuit board.